


It Never Hurts to Ask (It Sometimes Hurts to Answer)

by lostboywriting



Series: At Least You’re Not the Only One [2]
Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-18 19:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16523120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostboywriting/pseuds/lostboywriting
Summary: A year on from the Game, Rhyme still has questions her friends can’t answer—about the Game, about her lost fee, and about her future. (And about that wordher,too, but that’s another set of problems.) Neku, meanwhile, has questions of his own, the latest of which concern a bout of unexplained radio silence from Joshua. They both know Joshua doesn’t reallydoanswers, so when Rhyme invites him to join the gang on her twelfth birthday, she’s not expecting much.Still, it can’t hurt to ask. Probably.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A followup to “Missing the Point.” May or may not stand alone very well.
> 
> This fic was my project for the TWEWY Bang this year, but it got a bit more involved than planned, and life got in the way and I didn’t finish it before the deadline, so only the first two chapters got posted to Tumblr. 
> 
> Then I got sidetracked by writing Afterimage for TWEWYtober, and continued not to finish this. But Afterimage should be finished within the next few days—at least finished for the time being—so I thought I’d start getting this posted up here.
> 
> Quis Custodiet will also return after Afterimage is done. Sorry for the delay there, and thanks to everyone reading it for your patience. <3

_It's a gray after-school afternoon in October, a few months after the end of the Game, and the lot of them are ranged around Sunshine Burger at varying stages of war with their homework, when Rhyme finally works up the courage to lean over the table to Neku and ask:_

_"So what's the story with you and Joshua?"_

_Neku gives her a sharp look. Not an angry one; Rhyme hasn't ever seen him look angry at her, but cautious. "Your brother know you're asking me this?"_

_Rhyme shakes her head, bites her lip, and admits, "He told me not to."_

_Neku nods, expression solemn, stands up, and reaches for the jacket slung across the back of his chair. "Hey, Beat," he calls across the restaurant, to where Beat and Shiki are toiling over a page of algebra drills. (Well, Beat's toiling. Shiki is patiently coaching, because it's her turn today. She and Neku have been trading off on Mission: Get Beat Through Tenth Grade Alive since school started back up, an effort for which Rhyme is deeply grateful.) "I'm gonna take a walk up to Cat Street, say hi to Mr. H. Rhyme's got her homework done; okay if she comes with?"_

_Beat's face is twisted in pained concentration; he barely looks up, only grunts in affirmation and gives them a brief, distracted wave._

_Neku's out the door without waiting for more, moving quickly enough that Rhyme has to dash a few steps to catch up with him. She shoots him a questioning glance as she falls in at his side, and he shrugs. "Some places are safer to talk than others."_

_She nods, considers this. "By safer," she says carefully, "do you mean it's better if Beat's not around? Or… something else?"_

_Neku's answering laugh is quiet, rueful and good-natured, worlds away from the sullen, angry scowl Rhyme remembers from his first few days in the Game. "Joshua has this tendency to inspire strong feelings in the people who meet him," he says, tone dry. "A lot of those feelings are of the face-punching variety. I don't blame Beat for that, okay? I want to be really clear on that. He's trying to protect you."_

_"And you," Rhyme says. "You know he cares about you."_

_Neku darts her a sidelong look, and then smiles. There's wonder in that smile. "Yeah."_

_Then he ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, openness and vulnerability slipping away as quickly as they came, but his voice is still quiet as he adds, "I know."_

* * *

_September 2008:_

_Dear Joshua,_

(It's probably silly to write a text message like it's an actual letter, but Rhyme always does anyway, when she's writing to him. It seems appropriate somehow.)

_I know you probably won't respond to this message because you've never responded to any of the others I've sent you, and Neku says he barely saw you at all, all summer, so I'm guessing you probably have a lot to do._

Rhyme frowns at this for a moment, and then starts to add:

_(At least, I hope that's why he hasn't seen you, and it's not because you're being…_

She can't come up with a way to finish that sentence that isn't liable to get her a minor electrical burn for being too honest to a demigod, and she starts to backspace it out, but then she considers that Joshua would have to acknowledge he'd read it to retaliate. Which would be a kind of win, in its own way. Anyway, Neku always says that Joshua needs more people being honest to him, and Rhyme—from the very little she's ever talked to him, and the bits she's heard from Neku—is inclined to agree.

(And anyway, he's only ever actually zapped her the once, and in retrospect she probably shouldn't have run up behind him and grabbed his sleeve the way she did. Assassination attempts come with his job, she knows that, and she knows too—because Neku let it slip to her once, when he was worrying about it and trying over a cup of Mr. H's coffee to pretend he wasn't—that Joshua's a lot more vulnerable in the Realground than he is in the Underground. So Rhyme can't completely blame him for reacting badly to that one.)

So she deletes only part of it, and writes instead:

_(At least, I hope that's why he hasn't seen you. At first I was a little worried that maybe you stopped talking to him because you were sulking over what I said the last time I saw you, but of course that was silly of me, because I know that would be beneath you. But I hope everything is all right and you haven't been gone because of any serious problems.)_

If she does get zapped for that, it will have been worth it.

_Anyway, I wanted to let you know that it's my birthday two weeks from tomorrow. I'm turning twelve. Beat and Neku and Shiki and I are going for a picnic at Yoyogi Park that afternoon after we all get out of school, and I'd really like it if you could come too, because I wouldn't be here to turn twelve if not for you._

Strange, still, how easily she can say that. It scared Beat, how calm she was about it when she first came back, and she learned quickly enough not to talk about it, to pretend in his hearing that everything that had happened to her—and everything worse that might have happened—seemed as nightmarish to her as it did to him, better pushed away and forgotten. But it was never true, and sometimes when she thinks about _that_ it does scare her, a little. 

It's one of the reasons she likes talking to Neku, because Neku's safe to talk to; Neku came back to life with a set of complications even more—well—complicated than Rhyme's, and knows all about having things to say that make other people uncomfortable to hear.

And it's one of the reasons she's been sending weekly messages to Joshua for the last five months, even though he's never responded. She knows better than to think _safe_ is the word for Joshua, but it's highly unlikely she's ever going to say anything that really shocks him, at least as long as she's not talking about _him_. She figures, given who and what he is, that he probably sees both the worst and the weirdest that Shibuya has to offer on a daily basis.

_If you hadn't sent me back I'd be dead._

When he acknowledges it at all, Beat really likes to think that it's all him and Neku who pulled that off, that they rescued her. And of course they did, and _of course_ she owes them both her life, too. But what it comes down to, what she knows it comes down to, is that Joshua didn't have to send any of them back. It takes something out of him when he does, she's pretty sure of that from talking to Neku. And… she lost the Game.

_But even though we all know that, there aren't a lot of people I can say it to. Really just Neku and you. And it's still a lot to wrap my head around, you know? There's still a lot I don't understand. I know there aren't easy answers to anything, and you probably wouldn't hand them out if there were, but I'd really like the chance to talk with you again if you're willing to._

She's never actually put that out there so bluntly in any of her messages to him before. She's generally stuck to simple, sweet notes—letting him know when and where the gang's meeting up, reminding him he's welcome to join them if he likes, telling him a little bit of something that happened that week, saying thank you. Rhyme suspects people don't thank Joshua all that often. 

Saying, flat out, _Joshua, I died and I really want to talk to you about that_ is… different, but it doesn't feel wrong. It makes her feel a bit vulnerable, but she's never _not_ been vulnerable, if she's honest. And if she can't be honest about herself to a god, even a sort of irritable, difficult demigod, she probably can't be to anyone.

_Of course if you can't come, I understand. But I'd appreciate it if you can. Anyway, whether you do come or not, thanks for letting me be here._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Rhyme_

She scrolls back through the message, considers it carefully. There's one other thing she wants to say, but it's squarely in might-get-zapped-for-this territory and she's not sure if two of those in one letter would be too much.

She types it anyway.

_P.S. If you do come, would you please remember to bring that jacket that you borrowed from Neku? He'd really like it back. Or I can remind him to ask you for it the next time he sees you if that would be a help._

Rhyme is pretty sure Neku doesn't actually have any idea where his jacket got to. Shiki and Eri made it for him last fall. ( _You've got to get out of that J of the M comfort zone,_ Eri scolded when they announced to him—not asked, announced—that they were going to. _It's not doing you any favors._ ) It was a beautiful thing, soft and tailored in a rich dark brown that set off his eyes and went with his hair like an autumn forest. Shiki lost far too many nights of sleep to the detail work around the hems: lines that jumped like sound waves, and a twisting graffiti pattern underneath them that only a very few people would recognize. 

Eri and Shiki _both_ nearly stopped talking to Neku entirely when the thing went missing.

Rhyme's pretty sure Neku would be neither surprised nor particularly bothered—beyond some eye rolling and a muttered _of course he did_ —to find out Joshua took the thing. She's pretty sure Joshua could play it off casually enough— _Composer, Neku, everything's Mine in the end anyway, so what's the problem?_ —that Neku wouldn't think twice about it.

She's pretty sure—given the way Joshua stiffened for an instant, and the way his face went carefully still, the afternoon that Rhyme saw him wearing it and pointed out to him that she knew perfectly well it was Neku's jacket he was wearing—that taking it wasn't quite as casual an act as he'd like to pretend. And she's pretty sure that _he's_ pretty sure she knows that.

It's probably not wise to deliberately needle a death god, but Rhyme's not too worried about it. Joshua will have Neku to answer to if he kills her.

So she's pretty sure he won't.

Rhyme considers the message once more, and considers that probably-unwise postscript, and then shrugs and taps Send.

* * *

Rhyme's not positive that any of the texts she's sent to Joshua have actually gone through. There's never been a response, and she supposes it's possible that he has some kind of filtering in place. 

She only has his number at all because Neku, whenever it's his turn to pick a meetup spot for the gang, inevitably sends a group text to one more person than everyone else does. And she only knows for sure that the extra number Neku always adds to the list is Joshua's (Neku never gets a response either, at least not in group chat) because Beat's face gets tense in a particular familiar way, partly uncomfortable, partly angry, every time he sees that Neku's done it again. He always pointedly excludes that number from his replies.

Joshua's the only subject—the only subject—on which Rhyme has ever seen Beat get really genuinely angry at Neku. It took her a little while to learn the whole story; the furious lecture her brother gave her after the first time Joshua did turn up at one of their weekend meetings was short on specific reasons to distrust the slight, quiet boy, but they were long on emotional exhortations.

 _Just stay away, Rhyme, you got that? You see him around, anywhere, you keep your head down and stay quiet and make tracks the other way, if you can, and whatever the hell you do, don't get his attention. And if he ever pays you attention anyway, then_ —Rhyme remembers Beat shaking his head, making a face equal parts aggrieved and despairing, and wiping his hand across his forehead. _Then tell me, an' we'll talk to Neku and H-man and sort it out. I swear, I dunno why Neku didn't—_

But he fell silent, and he wouldn't say _what_ Neku didn't, however Rhyme asked. It wasn't the last of his rants on the subject, though, and eventually he let the word _Composer_ slip, and didn't even notice he'd said it until Rhyme repeated it, startled and curious and loud. At which point he went dead white and practically slapped a hand over her mouth. _You didn't hear that, Rhyme. Damn it—damn it, me and my stupid big mouth. You don't know anything about it, and you didn't hear it, and you never ever ever say it aloud, you got that? There's people who'd kill to know that shit, and there's people who'd kill to keep it quiet._

All right, Rhyme thought after that, so it sort of made sense why Beat was scared of him, even angry at him. The Composer brought them all back to life, but the Composer was the one running the Game, too.

(And sometimes, even now, she wakes up just as the shark's jaws snap shut on her, heart pounding in her ears, and sometimes she _doesn't_ wake up when they snap shut on Beat or Neku or Shiki instead, and when she does wake up she hugs a pillow tight to her chest and stares at the dark, and she understands the scared and the angry. She has the fewest memories from the Game, out of all of them, but she still came out of it with nightmares, and she knows it only got… more so, particularly for Beat and Neku.)

 _And don't you go asking Neku about him,_ Beat grumbled at her, on the defensive now. _He's… look, Neku's smarter than me most of the time, and I ain't got any collusions about that—_

( _Illusions,_ Rhyme didn't correct him, and she also didn't argue with him about the "smart" comment, even though she wishes he wouldn't say things like that. He has trouble focusing, and he gets words mixed up—and he doesn't think things through, but usually that's because he doesn't think he can. She's not sure that's the same thing as not being smart.)

 _—But Neku doesn't have his head on straight about this. He knows what the guy is, he_ knows, _an' he…_ Beat shrugged, trailing off into a morose silence and staring out his bedroom window.

_But if Joshua's the C—_

_Don't say it,_ Beat snapped, holding a hand up in her face. _I told you not to say it. An' yeah, I know what you're thinking, Rhyme, and yeah, I know what he did for us, but you ain't got the whole story. And it's better you don't._

After which he went silent again.

Rhyme loves her brother, and she doesn't want him to worry, and so she's never told him that a few weeks after that conversation, she asked Neku anyway.

And she's definitely never told Beat about the day at the end of spring when Joshua joined her at Hachiko for ice cream.

It wasn't a planned thing, at least not on her part; he just dropped out of the air without fanfare and sat down next to her one day. It was funny and a little sad how cautious he seemed, clear that he wasn't used to meeting people on any kind of equal footing—but it was after she thanked him for returning her and Beat to life that he really starting eyeing her like she was some sort of alien species he was trying to figure out and also establish his superiority over. _I could change my mind,_ she still remembers him saying sharply.

And Rhyme knows Beat thinks he really might, really thinks that any day now they might all still vanish in the aftershocks of a divine snit, but Rhyme's lived with Beat for almost twelve years. She knows stupid posturing when she sees it, and a demigod should know better.

So maybe she was a little stupid back. If she can't tell Beat she was talking to Joshua at all, she _definitely_ can never tell him that she tossed Neku in Joshua's face.

* * *

_"I could wipe you all out tomorrow, you know."_

_She looks up at him, studies his face—diffident and proud and more than a little irritated that she's not frightened of him—and wonders if he even knows that his bewilderment_ sings _off of him in tentative treble notes that give the lie to his arrogance. If he even knows how lost and uncertain he is._

 _Oh, she thinks._ That's _what Neku sees in him that the others don't, isn't it? Or something like it, anyway._

_She doesn't laugh; she thinks it would hurt him too much if she laughed, and she doesn't want to hurt anyone who's done as much for the people she cares about as Joshua has, even if he did do it all in the most inconveniently roundabout and unpleasant ways possible and she suspects—and is suspecting more by the minute as she talks to him—that it was mostly an accident that things turned out as well as they did._

_Still, she can't help the smile that spreads across her face, and she hopes he knows it's kindly meant. "You won't," she says. "It's on your face, you know. Your eyes light up a little every time you hear his name."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In other news, Surskitty is hosting a [TWEWY gift exchange.](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/twexwy2018/profile) Come join us! Signups close November 10th


	2. Chapter 2

_"So," Neku says without preamble, as he slides a thick mug of hot chocolate across the corner table at WildKat and sets down a cup of something dark and bitter for himself. "What do you already know about Joshua?"_

_"I know he was your partner the second time you played the Game," Rhyme begins slowly, carefully, like she's testing the ground under her feet. "But I know Beat and Shiki don't like him. And I… know he wasn't a regular Player. I know I'm not supposed to know, but I know he's… well, you know."_

_"You can say it here," Neku says. "Quietly, but you can say it here."_

_She draws a deep breath. "He's the Composer," she says, very quietly. "He's the one who sent us back to life."_

_Neku nods, and then stares down at his cup of coffee for a moment with brow wrinkled, mouth twisted thoughtfully, eyes intent, like he's trying to find the right words to help Beat answer a tricky homework question without just telling him the answer himself. "Okay. Did Beat…" He tilts his head to one side slightly, still staring into his coffee like he'll find the words there if he looks hard enough. "Did Beat ever tell you what Joshua did to me?"_

Did to me. _So Joshua did hurt him, then. She's been hoping maybe Beat was just overreacting. "No."_

_"Okay," he says again, and he's silent for a moment and then lets out a short, rueful laugh, raking a hand through the spikes in his hair and ducking his head slightly, awkwardly, like Rhyme's seen him do before when he was feeling sheepish. "Yeah, so Joshua—Joshua murdered me. That's how I wound up in the Game."_

_Oh._ Oh.

_She's not sure what she was expecting Neku to say, but it wasn't that, and it certainly wasn't that in that offhand way. The way Neku says it, it's an act worthy of an exasperated eyeroll, and maybe the kind of Look that Eri, when Shiki brings her along after school some days, sometimes gives Beat (a look that's invariably followed with a shake of the head, a sigh, and an audible mutter: "Boys.")_

_Rhyme's used to being the one who always has a response, with Beat, but adages and maxims generally work with Beat, who usually just needs a gentle reminder to step back and take a breath and think about things. This one… this one she's going to have to think about, and now it's her turn to curl her fingers around her cup of cocoa and gaze down into it like answers might come floating to the top._

_It explains why Beat is so hostile towards Joshua, certainly, but it explains very little else. Rhyme considers it carefully, turning it around in her head, looking for some angle by which she can see it fitting in with the rest of what she knows._

_(What does she know? Joshua was Neku's partner. Joshua is the Composer. Neku invites Joshua along almost every time they all get together, and Joshua almost never shows up. When he does turn up he's quiet and aloof and faintly haughty, and his attention skims past everyone except Neku like they don't really matter to him, like they barely even exist. But when his gaze lands on Neku… it's caught, every time, whether or not Neku means to catch it. Whether or not Neku even knows._

_And now—Joshua murdered Neku._

_No, that's definitely not where she thought this was going.)_

_"And then you were his partner," she says a little dubiously, but even as she says it she thinks, well, of course he was, because that's how the Game goes, right? Doubly so, probably, when you're dealing directly with the person who runs it._

_Neku shrugs. "You know how it is when they mess with your memory."_

_Rhyme nods. She does know._

_"I figure—" he says, and stops, hesitates, starts again. "Honestly, I figure you might… get that part of it, more than the others do. I mean, it's different, obviously, but—"_

_"But it hurts either way when you realize it," she says quietly._

* * *

_October 2008:_

This is probably going to be a mistake.

Joshua knows it's probably going to be a mistake, but the sheer charming absurdity of a child inviting him to her birthday—a child who lost his Game, no less—is too much for him to pass up. And so here he is, on the bank of a small pond in Yoyogi park, sitting and watching fish and listening to the chatter of passersby and birds, and definitely not waiting, all nerves on edge, for the familiar hum of Neku's frequency to come into range.

Rhyme's an interesting enough child, as children go. She knows what he is, and she knows what he does, and she's curiously unbothered by both. That takes a certain amount of courage, and is perhaps worth rewarding, if only to see what will happen.

Which is why he's here. The only reason why he's here.

He hasn't seen Neku face-to-face in… a while now.

(Eighty-one days, a more clinical part of his mind informs him, you know it's been eighty-one days, because the last time you saw him was when you were making him buy you ramen and trinkets on the anniversary of you shooting him in the head. Some dates you just don't forget, even if that one did appear to completely slip Neku's notice.)

 _…Not in a while now;_ he's not counting. It'll be fine. He's been busy and Neku's been busy and all right, Neku has sent him a couple… more than a couple… of texts since then, which he never did get around to answering, but honestly he's Composer and he has a Game and a district to run and even if he didn't, he's not obligated to explain himself to anyone.

He catches himself drumming his fingers restlessly on the grass, and stops, irritated by the mindlessness of the action. Irritated by his own discomfort, as if he's answerable to a sixteen-year-old boy, as if it matters—really matters—what Neku thinks of anything he does or doesn't do.

Which is precisely why Joshua hasn't seen him in a while now, of course.

He thinks back to Rhyme's half sweet, half utterly insolent message and snorts under his breath. _I was a little worried that maybe you stopped talking to him because you were sulking over what I said the last time I saw you, but of course that was silly of me._

He hasn't been _sulking,_ and he's never—if he lives centuries—showing that note to Sanae, who Joshua is well aware would throw his head back and laugh at the top of his lungs for a solid five minutes minimum upon reading it. _Kid's got your number, boss._

She really doesn't. He hasn't been sulking, but what she said the last time she saw him—it was dangerous, to an extent he expects she still doesn't realize. He's acknowledged that, is all. Recognized his own self-sabotage and taken steps to sort it out. He's not going to end like Orihime, to be scolded back to his loom.

(The image is still clear: the tilt of the little girl's head as she leaned forward and propped her chin on her hands and regarded him with the solemnity of a priest advising a supplicant. _You know he's always saying things to you that he's not sure he wants to, don't you? I'm just saying maybe you should try doing the same thing sometime. Give him a chance to hurt you. Trust he won't take it._

Which perhaps would have been passable advice, if given to someone who was actually a teenager, instead of a demigod with a district to run and the souls of everyone in it to account for. Joshua did give Neku a chance to hurt him, once. Neku didn't take it. That doesn't mean that repeating the experiment is necessary, or advisable.)

He pushes himself to his feet and paces away from the pond, casting his thoughts away from himself, out across the scattered parkgoers: musicians, artists, students, families, letting their cares and joys and inspirations wash over him and buoy him up, away from himself. That was one thing about spending so much of his time around Neku: it made him check on things from ground level on a regular basis, stay in tune. He hasn't done that so much since he stopped seeing the boy, and when he's not doing it regularly it starts feeling unnecessary. Until he takes the time, and remembers.

A clear bell of a voice, high and pure, rings out behind him and interrupts his reverie. "Joshua!"

He turns. Rhyme is charging forward, Beat close on her heels. Joshua raises a hand in greeting, and smiles slightly—both at the clear delight evident on Rhyme's face, and the utter lack of same on Beat's.

"You actually showed—" Rhyme begins, but she's drawing close, and her brother interrupts, hasty bordering on frantic:

"Ah—no, hey, _no._ Nuh-uh, no. Rhyme, c'mere. I told you, man, you leave my little sister alone." Beat's anger can't quite hide an underlying note of nervous strain as he puts a hand on Rhyme's shoulder, guides her a step backwards and places himself in Joshua's way. "I _know_ Neku didn't invite you, not today. You want to start shit with the rest of us, fine, but Rhyme stays out of it. That's the deal."

"Beat," Rhyme says, but he holds a hand up, shushing her.

Joshua should probably be good, but some people are too easy to rile, and he gives Beat a curious look, brows raised and eyes wide. "The _deal,_ was it? My." Lets a slight, wickedly amused smile slip across his face, lets his voice soften, and leans in. "Bold of you to think you can make deals with the Composer—but I don't recall signing anything, Daisukenojo."

And Beat's really, really rattled by Joshua talking to his sister, because he doesn't even blink at the use of his given name, only clenches his fists and raises them slightly, threateningly, and glares. "Oh, I'll give you something to sign, priss kid. You—"

 _"Beat."_ Rhyme pokes him in the arm and gives the back of his shirt an exasperated tug. "Neku didn't invite him. I did."

"You _what?_ Rhyme—"

Rhyme ignores her brother's spluttering and peers around his side to give Joshua a resigned, disappointed scowl. "And you're terrible," she says levelly. "Don't make me tell Neku."

Joshua matches her scowl with an unimpressed stare, and carefully ignores the slight but painful twisting sensation in his chest. It's easier to feel disdain, and so he does—lets his smile return, light and playful, and lets an amused spark into his eyes, daring her to try backing up any threat she actually thinks might work. "And what exactly do you expect Neku to do about it?"

"Do about what?" Neku's voice is dry and sardonic and coming from directly behind him.

Joshua doesn't quite jump, but he tenses a little and bites back a curse. Even with his senses damped down to Realground levels he can normally pick Neku's frequency out of a crowd at a hundred meters or more; the bright aura around him sings in joyous counterpoint with the city. Normally. But it's muted today, somehow, just out of Joshua's reach.

Beat is still too worked up about the fact that Joshua's there at all to have noticed his momentary discomfiture, but Rhyme's innocent gaze is just a little too shrewd as it lands on Joshua's face. Joshua gives her a brief look of warning, and spins to meet Neku with an easy smile. "Hey there, partner. We were just discussing—"

"That he ain't staying," Beat interrupts, his voice flat.

"Beat, I said—"

"Rhyme, I know what you said, but stay outta this, got it? There's people we invite, and there's people we don't invite, and there's people we don't even go near because they ain't safe, and he—" Beat has no idea how close he comes to losing the hand that he raises to jab a finger sharply towards Joshua's back— "He ain't safe. I've _told_ you that, Rhyme."

Joshua keeps his mild expression in place until Beat pauses for breath, and then shrugs. "We were just discussing the fact," he says to Neku, "that Rhyme appears not to have apprised her elder brother of her full guest list. I'm getting the impression he has feelings about this. Strong ones."

"Hey, look at that," Beat mutters. "He can hear. 'Gratu-freakin'-lations, prissy kid, you ain't deaf."

Neku folds his arms over his chest and gives Beat a long, quelling look and Joshua a slightly longer and more suspicious one, which hardly seems—

—Well, no, Joshua concedes in the privacy of his head, it's fair. He smiles ruefully back at his former proxy and tilts his head. "As he's expressing quite eloquently himself." Over his shoulder, he tosses, "If you think I'm so unsafe, Beat, I _might_ make the point that perhaps antagonism isn't—"

"Joshua," Neku says wearily, "cut the crap. Rhyme, can I talk to you for a second? You—both of you—" He glares back and forth between Beat and Joshua, then rubs his forehead and shakes his head and turns away. "Seriously, if either one of you is bleeding when Rhyme and I come back, I'm telling Mr. H."

Joshua holds his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender, and laughs softly. "Yes, _sir._ "

Beat scowls and folds his arms over his chest and looks away.

Joshua watches in silence as Neku and Rhyme walk away across the grass. When they're out of easy earshot, Beat makes an aggrieved noise low in his throat. "Seriously, man. Why'd she invite _you?_ "

Joshua shrugs, still watching as the two sit down on a bench and bend their heads close together. Whatever Neku's done to his frequency, he'd better undo it; Joshua doesn't at all like this business of not being able to sense him from a distance. Sanae will probably know. "You know as much about that as I do. She's been persisting at it for a few months now."

"Months," Beat echoes, with a kind of dull horror. "Months?"

"No need to sound so afraid for her," Joshua says quietly. "I don't kill children for attempting to be friendly, Daisukenojo."

"Nah," Beat says, just as quietly, but with fervor. "Nah, you just toss 'em to your Reapers, and _they_ throw them to the sharks."

Joshua opens his mouth, but Beat barrels ahead. "And don't give me that shit about _they're already dead._ You think it hurts any less? Anyway—" He shakes his head and lets out a short, sharp breath that might be a laugh, but there's no humor in it. "Anyway, Neku wasn't. I know what you are, man. I know what you did. And Neku thinks it makes it better that things turned out like they did, and yeah, me an' Rhyme probably wouldn't be here if not for that, but I don't think you _meant_ it to turn out that way, and it's fucked up to act like I gotta thank you for it. And I'll stop there, 'cause I'm not _attempting to be friendly,_ if you get me, and I never will be."

"You shock me," Joshua says absently, watching the conversation going on across the park. Neku's listening intently to whatever it is Rhyme has to say, nodding along, the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders radiating solemn attention even though his face and frequency are both unreadable from here. Rhyme's own body language is subdued, giving little hint of what she's saying, but whatever it is Neku doesn't look like he disagrees. And Joshua… it's ridiculous, him standing here, _deliberately_ limiting himself from listening in on them but at the same time unable—no, not unable, he scolds himself silently, just… unwilling, which is only slightly better—to turn his attention away. "I mean, you've been doing such a good impression of friendliness until now."

"The hell does Rhyme want with you?" Beat mutters under his breath. "She's supposed to be the smart one."

"I told you, Beat, on this subject—if on nothing else—you know as much as I do." Sanae must have something to help Neku mute his frequency, the same way he mutes the goings-on in WildKat for his privacy. That would make more sense than Neku doing it on his own. Of course it would; Neku couldn't have done it on his own.

Could he?

Beat makes a grumbling noise, deep in his throat. " _If on nothing else._ Yeah, same to you, prissy kid."

* * *

_"So you're sure he won't do any of it again," Rhyme says, carefully, when Neku has finished as much of the story as he's going to tell. "You're sure he's… well, he's safe to be around?"_

_Neku tilts his head sideways for a moment, and she has the feeling he's weighing his next words carefully, testing each one on his tongue before committing it to speech. "I think that depends on what you mean by safe," he says at last, and it would be easy for those words to sound bitter or cynical, but Neku just sounds thoughtful, like he's puzzling through the words. "I'm sure he's not going to hurt anyone else, if that's what you're asking." He makes a face and adds, "Anyone living. The Game's still what it is. He's still taking fees and then throwing the dead to the Noise and the Harriers. Which…" He trails off, meeting Rhyme's eyes for a brief moment and then shifting his gaze away uncomfortably. "Look, you've got as much reason to hate him as anybody does. I'm not going to tell you not to. I'm not telling anybody not to."_

_"But you don't," she says. "Hate him, I mean."_

_Neku laughs, the sound sudden and startlingly cheerful, and he leans back and laces his fingers behind his head and turns his face away to look out the window, but not before she's seen the light of humor in his eyes. "Yeah, I do," he says frankly. "He's an absolute bastard, he put me through hell, and I dream about punching him in his smug face all the time. But it's kind of gotten to the point where it's… it's like breathing. It's just there, you know? Get up in the morning, brush teeth, swear at Joshua in case he's listening in. He's usually listening in. Still not sure if he does that to everybody, or if I just won a creepy stalker god in the lottery 'cause I'm that lucky."_

_It's a lot to take in, and Rhyme goes back to her hot cocoa for a moment, breathes in the steam and lets the sweet smell pull her back to the present moment and hold her there. She's done_ a lot to take in _before. Waking up and realizing she'd been dead and then had her memories of her brother stolen and then gotten deader and then turned into a squirrel Noise and then used as bait in Konishi's sadistic games._

_"But, you know," Neku adds, and he's quieter now. "I, uh… I was kind of a rotten person, when the Game started." Another pause, and he clears his throat awkwardly, self-consciously. "I mean, I'm still not always…"_

_"Neku," Rhyme says quietly. "You helped save my life. You saved Beat's life. You're a pretty okay person."_

_"Yeah—no, yeah," he concedes with a tilt of his head. "I mean, I'm better than I was. I'm not perfect, but I'm better than I was. I know that. But that's the thing. I really wasn't pretty okay, before."_

_Rhyme opens her mouth, and he stalls her with a raised hand. "No. I know Beat talks way too much shit about himself when he thinks he's messed something up, and you're always telling him to treat himself better, but this isn't that. I…" He chews on his lower lip. "I'm not going into the details, because I promised someone I wouldn’t, but I came pretty close to doing something pretty… screwed up, when the Game started. Only didn't because someone made me stop, and what I did was bad enough. And… I knew it was wrong, but I thought at the time I could make excuses for it. I was scared, I was in danger, I didn't have a choice." He gives a short, self-deprecating laugh. "Two truths and a lie. But even if something's true, it doesn't make it a good excuse."_

_Again Rhyme's struck by the fact that he mostly sounds thoughtful._

_"And… you know, for me, what it comes down to is—if Joshua hadn't done what he did, and if I hadn't gone through the massively stupid amount of bullshit I went through as a result—I'd still be that person. I'd still be so afraid of getting hurt, I'd think it was better to hurt everyone else. And he… made it as right as he could, in the end. I mean, we're all here. So yeah." He shrugs slightly, his mouth twisting into a ruefully lopsided smile as he meets her eyes. "I hate him, but from where I stand he's kind of worth it. Never tell him I said that, though. His ego does not need help."_

* * *

"So hit me," Neku says quietly, once he and Rhyme are sitting on a bench that he's pretty sure is out of range of even Joshua's hearing. "What's going on? Did you really invite him?"

Rhyme casts her gaze down at the wood of the bench, runs one finger thoughtfully along the grain for a moment, and then nods. "And I didn't tell Beat," she admits frankly. "I understand why Beat doesn't want me to—I understand why Beat's still angry at him—but he's angrier about what happened to you and me than he is for himself. And I think, maybe, I should get a say in that. I think _you_ should definitely get more of a say in that than Beat gives you. But Beat doesn't always listen really well, so—" She shrugs, honest but unapologetic. "Sometimes I just kind of have to do things he won't like, and let him get upset about it, and then sort it out from there. I mean, you do the same thing," she adds as he opens his mouth. "You invite Joshua along all the time. It's not like Beat's okay with it when you do it."

Neku grimaces. "Yeah, okay, fair. Rhyme—" He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, shoots a wary glance across to where Beat and Joshua are still standing. "You know Beat's trying to protect you."

"He's trying to protect both of us," Rhyme says. "But that doesn't make him right. He can't protect us from things that have already happened."

She's not wrong. As usual. Neku sometimes wishes she would be. "So how come you want to talk to him, anyway?" he asks, carefully. "You okay, Rhyme?"

"Yeah. No. Maybe." Another shrug, and she glances sidelong at him. "I sort of had ice cream with him one time. A few months ago."

Neku blinks, taken aback. "…Oh, yeah?" he manages weakly, trying to picture this.

She nods and rests her chin on her hand, eyes thoughtful. "He's not very good at… well, at getting along with people, is he?"

A soft snort escapes before Neku can stop it. "No. No, he's not."

"I think he was trying. Sort of." She smiles ruefully. "He was kind of terrible, though."

"Yeah. Yeah, he's always kind of terrible." Neku rubs his forehead. "You're… all right, though, right? I mean, he didn't, like—I don't know—you don't _seem_ traumatized for life, but—" He's not sure if he's joking with that last comment or not, but he's not joking with the question that underlies it, even if he can't quite put words around it. Even if he's ninety-nine percent sure he doesn't have to ask.

"I'm fine, Neku. He was fine. He…" Rhyme twists her mouth in a pensive knot for a moment, rubs the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other in a gesture she doesn't seem quite conscious of, like she's remembering some past injury. "He wasn't _nice,_ but I understand why he wasn't, given… what his job is. And the funny thing is, he was sort of easy to talk to. I mean—" Her brow creases, and she tilts her head. "I was down to nothing but Noise, and he put me back together. And there's something about knowing that, at least for me, that leaves me feeling like I don't really have to pretend to be anything I'm not when I'm talking to him. Does that make sense?"

It makes far too much sense, so much sense it makes Neku's breath catch, even as a senseless platitude rises in his throat: _You don't have to pretend anything to any of us._ He swallows it back, because of course it's not true. Rhyme pretends all the time to Beat that everything's normal, because Beat… wouldn't deal well with hearing that it's not. "Yeah. It does."

She nods, and for the first time a hint of worry shows in her eyes as she glances up at him. "I should've told you I invited him, even if I didn't tell Beat. Sorry. It's going to make your day more complicated, isn't it?"

Is it ever. "It's okay," he says, and means it, mostly. "I'm glad he actually showed. I think. I've been…"

He pauses, rubs the back of his neck, tries to find words for what he's been, or more specifically words that are appropriate to share with a twelve-year-old, even one as sharp as Rhyme. _Especially_ one as sharp as Rhyme.

"I've been wondering what he was up to," he says, because any of the things he could say about how he's felt are things Rhyme doesn’t dumped on her shoulders, and even if she did, Neku's not giving voice to any of them with Joshua in potential hearing distance. If Joshua wants to know, he can damn well read Neku's mind, which he's probably done already anyway. He's probably had a good laugh about the amount of confusion he's caused.

(Because anyway, what has he been? Worried? Angry? Hurt? Guiltily relieved? Joshua's barely shown his face since spring, except for one morning in July when he turned up unannounced (as usual) and dragged Neku away from whatever he'd been doing at the time and they ended up spending the entire day on a lengthy ramble through all of their usual haunts and then some, poking through back alleys and hidden art galleries and the kinds of hole-in-the-wall shops that appeared overnight and—assuming nothing in them really caught Joshua's eye—were probably going to vanish again just as quickly.

That was a good day—one of the better ones of the summer, if Neku is honest. Even when they ended up at the Lapin Angelique shop near the end of the day, because they were in the vicinity of A-East and Joshua as usual couldn't resist. Even when it was Neku—as usual—who somehow wound up paying for everything despite the fact that it was Joshua buying it.)

"Yeah," Rhyme says quietly, and he thinks she's wise enough that she's hearing all the messier things he didn't say. "I know you have."

Neku lets out a silent laugh. He's still got a picture on his phone, of Joshua in the damn dress he bought that day. Neku doesn't, as a rule, take pictures of Joshua, because Joshua would undoubtedly take it as an excuse to tease and flirt. Which would all be done in his typical _I'm-not-actually-interested-I-just-like-making-you-uncomfortable_ way, and Neku knows that's all it is, and that… that's fine, really, because Neku would have to be seven kinds of grade-A suicidal _idiot_ to be that kind of interested in someone like Joshua. It's really just better not to go there.

But that day in July was the kind of day where terrible ideas seemed like good ones, and so when they were walking down Cat Street towards the cafe and Joshua tilted his head back to laugh at something, eyes sparkling, and the light caught his profile just so and made a thoroughly ironic halo of his hair, Neku didn't really think about it. He just flipped his phone open and took the picture.

They stayed at WildKat until almost midnight: Neku filling pages in his sketchbook with images the galleries had brought to mind; Joshua messing with some new app on his phone and occasionally leaning over Neku's shoulder, curious, but for once without a single barbed critique. They somehow—for once—didn't end it snarking at each other in an ever-escalating spiral of insults and petty threats, but in a kind of quiet, comfortable space that felt... right, in a way that Neku didn’t quite have words for then and still doesn’t now.

And then it was followed by exactly nothing. Radio silence.

In some of his more idiotic moments, Neku's wondered darkly if the disappearance was _because_ of that picture on his phone, if Joshua took him taking it as some kind of victory trophy. _Oh, good, I finally won that one over. Time to move on._

"Look, Rhyme," he says at last, wearily. "Whatever you want to talk to him about, I'm not going to tell you not to, and I'll back you up to Beat. But just… be careful, okay?"

She nods, her expression sober. "I will."

* * *

_"Neku—" Rhyme frowns. "You said you were sure he wouldn't hurt anyone else. But what about you? Are you sure he won't hurt you?"_

_And Neku tilts his head, and laughs far too easily at this question. "No. No, not even close. And whatever shit he pulls next time I'll wind up better off for it, again, and swearing at him the entire freaking way. If I survive." The amusement in his eyes turns faintly wistful as he adds, "But don't worry about it, Rhyme. He won't stick around forever."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_Neku shrugs, and his smile stays where it is, but something behind it fades out. "He's a god," he says simply. "Basically. Sooner or later, he's going to get bored with playing mortal."_


End file.
